Today's interesting TV stories to read from TV with Thinus - 10 September 2015

Ellen says being a judge on American Idol was "one of the worst decisions of my life".
Admits she hated American Idol. "I'm like everybody else at home. So I thought. I'm gonna represent those people at home that have opinions. But then I just thought, I can't break this person's heart. Let somebody else do that."


David Gregory speaks publicly for the first time about getting fired from Meet the Press.
David Gregory who was fired as moderator of Meet the Press Sundays at 20:00 on CNBC Africa (DStv 410) talks about his abrupt departure and the animosity behind the scenes.
"Things happen in television news. It's a tough business. It was handled in a way that was unnecessary." And: "Rather than get into the nastiness of it, I just tried to internalise what I take away from it, what I could have done a little better in terms of how I treated people so that people might have been rooting for me a little more."


"People are starting to realise there's too much TV."
Steve Burke, NBCUniversal CEO says the explosion of scripted TV across Netflix and pay-TV channels have become too much. "People are starting to realise there's too much here."

The new TV season's most likely hits - and failures.
Marketing research predicts that Scream Queens on FOX (DStv 125 / StarSat 131) is going to be a hit - the same with Code Black coming to M-Net (DStv 101) and Quantico coming to VUZU AMP (DStv 114).
Blindspot starting next month on M-Net is going to struggle - and so is Minority Report coming to FOX in South Africa.

The New York Times introduces Jamie Poniewozik as its new TV critic.
He replaces the often contentious Alessandra Stanley after 12 years and writes his first review of the Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
Meanwhile this TV critic says sorry for his initial review of You're the Worst.

How American soap The Young and the Restless on e.tv manages to survive.
While the soap genre is slowly dying.

Yusuf Stevens talks about 2nd season of She's the One.
Executive producer of the advertiser-funded production for Edgars talks about the new season of the show which is jumping from SABC3 to e.tv.

MSNBC dumps The Cycle, Now with Alex Wagner and Ed Show, brings back Chuck Todd as news channel tries to claw back to hard news coverage.

MSNBC (StarSat 263) is dumping several shows, announcing late on Thursday that The Cycle, Now with Alex Wagner and The Ed Show will all abruptly have their last editions today as the struggling American TV news channel tries to move from a progressive slanted channel to once more focused on straight hard news and breaking news reporting.

MSNBC president Phil Griffin told staff of the 24-hour TV news channel on Thursday in an internal memo that the three shows will be gone after Friday.

It follows the cancellation in February of Ronan Farrow and Joy Reid's shows. Longtime presenter Ed Schultz who've anchored on MSNBC since 2009, as well as Krystal Ball, Abby Huntsman and Toure are leaving MSNBC.

Alex Wagner will stay on and Ari Melber who was one of The Cycle's panelist will also remain as MSNBC's chief legal correspondent.

Chuck Todd, the moderator of Meet the Press seen on Sundays at 23:00 on sister channel CNBC Africa (DStv 410) will get a new, daily hour long show, keeping his Sunday show and adding the new MSNBC programme.

Chuck Todd's new daily MSNBC weekday show which hasn't been named yet will be be seen at 23:00 on weekdays in South Africa.

"In the coming weeks, as we complete our plans to create a new look and flow for our programming, our hours will begin to pivot towards live, breaking news coverage - with interim hosts from among our very talented ranks," Phil Griffin told MSNBC staffers.

"In September we'll unveil a schedule driven by dynamic coverage of breaking news events that are shaping the day".

The discredited, damaged and recently removed news anchor Brian Williams - previously of NBC Nightly News and also seen daily on CNBC Africa on DStv across Africa but now with new anchor Lestor Holt, will now be appearing on MSNBC.

After Brian Williams admitted that he falsified reports during trips covering news stories, he was removed from NBC Nightly News earlier this year, but will now become MSNBC's "anchor for breaking news reports".

MSNBC has not yet said when Brian Williams will start to appear on the 24-hour TV news channel, although its likely that it will co-incide with the new schedule coming into effect from September.

"Change can be hard. There's no doubt it's been a difficult time, but we have exciting opportunities ahead," Phil Griffin told MSNBC staffers.

BREAKING. After an absence of months, the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams and Meet the Press return to CNBC Africa.

You're reading it here first.

Both the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams as well as the weekly show Meet the Press with David Gregory will be back on CNBC Africa (DStv 410) from this week.

This past Tuesday I was first RIGHT HERE with the news that both shows are set to return to the business channel imminently, and now I can tell you that it will indeed be so. The NBC Night News with Brian Williams will return to CNBC Africa from tomorrow/Tuesday morning at 00:30 South African time, an hour earlier than before when the show disappeared. America's daily news show with the highest viewership in America will once again be going out at this new time on weeknights.

Meet the Press will return as well and my CNBC Africa source says it will probably be its old time slot again, meaning midnights on Sunday nights. As I've said previously, both shows were yanked due to technical CNBC Europe content rights squabbles, who is now trying again. With these shows now again being available for CNBC Europe, they're also available for CNBC Africa.